In Silence
by CBK1000
Summary: The beer and the babes and the boobs, toots. That's all he's here for. Turks do not get love stories.


**A/N: Ok, so this is my very first FF VII fic...be gentle with me? I was inspired to play around in Reno's mind for a little while by two fantastic fics I was lucky enough to stumble across in this fandom. The first is Death is Part of the Process by licoriceallsorts, the second Endnote1 by demonegg, and I highly recommend you read them both. I don't think you'll be disappointed. Also, a couple of quick notes; this fic takes place during Before Crisis, although the main plotline does not really play into this, aside from one brief mention of a canon event. For the sake of this story, Seventh Heaven was built a little earlier, since originally it is built during the events of Crisis Core. Tifa is also older, we'll say about 20, 21. Please keep in mind that this fic takes place over the course of several months. I hope you enjoy, and that I did not absolutely obliterate Reno's character.**

Someone is begging him for mercy again.

Ya' know, he had a brief dalliance with mercy once. Didn't get along well with it.

Not what the boss man is looking for.

He sends a brisk feedback twitch through his EMR and the man jitters a urine-reeking spasm of neural short-out that flops him convulsing facedown against the floor-

And ahhh, man, he hates it when they piss themselves. Makes everything fuckin' stink, ya' know? Seeps into his suit and his hair and his goddamned shoes, follows him around like that yapping puppy of a SOLDIER- the hell's that guy's name again? Rack? Nah- that was just what he'd thought the guy oughta' have, first time he met him. Any prettier and he's gonna' make the kid another notch on his scored-all-to-shit bedpost.

There is a nicotine scorch inside his chest that folds him hacking at the waist and he fuckin' _told _Rude these fuckin' knockoffs were a waste of gil-

He flicks the stub in his hand spiraling down to become a smear of ash across this empty death-glassed stare he can't seem to stop looking at.

Yo, just a job man-nothing personal, you hear? Don't gotta' stare like that- makes a guy nervous. Makes you see shit sometimes, lying in a sex-rumpled bed with your lipstick-smeared flavor of the night a warmly naked fetal coil against your side, and there's other shit to worry about, y'know- he's still got a soundless retreat of an escape to make and another number to callously discard like the panties he has to step over on his way out the door.

The sky is a dirty thumbprint smudge of pollution over his head.

He takes out another cigarette and tongues it into one corner of his mouth, and his legs lower him without warning or permission into a squat that rocks him back onto his heels, and now his hand's in on the game too- yo, what, no one's got any respect for authority anymore? He didn't tell it to do this shit-

A short little wrist flick of a reach closes that empty death-glassed stare, and for just a moment he breathes in piss and belches of reactor smoke that boil hissing toward the sky.

His cigarette is a card trick flick in his peripheral vision: now you see it, now you don't. Gotta' do somethin' with his tongue- keeps it limber, ya' know.

He wipes his hand on his pants.

Forget this shit. Time for a drink.

* * *

><p>He rolls in like he owns the place: hands in his pockets, smirk on his lips, winks to the ladies, and hows about a little motherfuckin' <em>respect<em>, yo- there's a Turk in the house.

He seats himself at the bar and raps his knuckles on its burn-scarred surface; the bartender glances up from her customer with a hollowly flirtatious smile that tells him she's just doing her job- you hear that mister, so don't try a fuckin' thing- and he slaps his pack down in front of him and twists smiling around in his stool to look for a vending machine.

Typical little slum number; he's been in worse, though- this place is clean, at least-and the TV on the wall above the bar could go for a few hundred gil on the black market. He used to fence the things sometimes, before the suit and the regularity of a paycheck that keeps him in booze and chicks and cigs. Pinball machine in the corner, too- don't see those too often. Have to try his hand at that later. Loser buys. Attractive loser goes home with him- see, everyone's a winner in the end.

"What can I get you?"

His assessment is a short heartbeat flicker of a glance.

Rack out to here. Legs up to there.

Nice. Can't buy a pair of tits better than these.

His smile is all lip- showing teeth's not languorous or smoldering or all the other adjectives that make up a chick's mind that he is different, he is _changeable_- he is Reno of the Turks because he is misled or hurting or angry with a world that threw him skidding out on his face-

He's not doing it for the paycheck or the little sizzling rush in his chest that ignites like a spark and spreads all the way down into his balls: sit up and pay some fuckin' _attention_, world- see the suit and the goggles and this outta'-the-way swagger comin' toward you? Know what being a Turk _is_?

It's ending your insignificant little existence just because one brief, tersely-worded call on his PHS says so. Snap your fingers, blink an eye, and you're _done_, asshole.

Yeah, he's been hoodwinked, deceived, a little lamb led astray- he's just sittin' around scraping up nerve from the bottom of a bottle, waitin' for little blondie in the corner over there to fan his worries skittering away with a bat of those cosmetic-dripping lashes-

Riiiight.

He leans his elbows down against the bar, and looks up from underneath his brows. Always works to dampen at least a few panties, for some reason. "Bartender's choice, babe."

She turns around with another perfunctory little smile that lifts him back up off his elbows, rubbing his hair. Huh. Not even a blink. He can't be losing his touch- blondie's got a nice little puddle of drool going on that Tits here'll have to mop up off the table in front of her later tonight. Reno's the sirloin, and she is the starving slum children. Maybe he oughta' re-think this one- he's not opposed to biting, but there's a time and a place and a proper amount of pressure to exert, yeah? This bitch's got that whole crazy-eyed thing going on, and he's woken up next to enough of those to know you ain't gettin' out without chewing something off, and there's only so far you can push the envelope before it turns out one day it's your dick you gotta' sacrifice, if you want outta' there alive.

The bartender sets a glass down in front of him. "What's your name, babe?"

Her smile is back, and he thinks he can see just a faint glimmering hint of mischievousness in it this time. "It isn't 'babe.'"

She is three customers down and still going, and he stares after her for just a moment longer than he should before picking up his drink.

It's a nuclear white-out in his throat that smears interstellar black pinwheeling across his eyes and what the goddamn hell _is _this shit-

His question is a moist hack of a thing he can barely understand himself. "The…hell…was _that_?"

She swings a doe-eyed who-me look back over one shoulder that smokes the edges of the world together until it's all one watermark smear in front of his eyes-

He brings his arm slanting up across his face.

Nah; just his eyes tearing up.

She is still smiling at him; the cloth over her shoulder is a dirty limp rag of a thing that smells like the wood underneath his hands.

"You said bartender's choice, right?"

* * *

><p>He is not a big fan of blood.<p>

Smells funny, y'know, and his old man used to have him choking on it often enough that it's all just a gray-hazed blur of old memories that smell like terrified child piss in the dark anyway. His mother's cooking too- oblivious experimental stints in the kitchen that kept her there for hours, because she couldn't or wouldn't or did not want to know what was going on in the back room.

That's what blood smells like to him.

But ShinRa's got no use for squeamish employees, so he can draw it with the best of them.

Growing up in the slums, you get a good idea of how to go about knocking the shit out of someone early on, and he's always been something of a natural talent, if he says so himself. Throw in a little formal training and these three gangsta wannabe punkasses circling him like sharks angling for the kill ain't got a fuckin' chance- run along to your mommas, kids, Reno's here.

Rude's already got one spitting up teeth at his feet, but watch this, yo.

The one on the far left's looking squirrelly, like he's got something in his pants that's not supposed to be there- maybe a load, judging from the look on his face- and there's a snicker in his throat as he chambers for a backfist that spins the man gurgling down onto his knees, and now his pirouette is a long flawless twist of a thing, smooth as a shot of the really good shit burning in your belly-

He stops one of the fucker's hands an inch from his nose; guy's got a knife, and his face is too pretty for that kinda' shit.

Nifty little thing about the wrist: agile joint, got a lot of flex to it, but bend it the wrong way and one lithe whip crack of your arm'll snap the fucker like a twig. Lot like the knee, that way. Twelve pounds of pressure, baby, and you're a hobbling little IT-torn cripple- might be the biggest baddest motherfuckin' shark in the sea, but limping along like that, the piranhas are gonna' get ya' eventually.

He boots an afterthought of a sidekick into the knife-wielding asshole's knee, and now the knife's in his hand, and there is a red-lipsticked clown's smile of a wound across the guy's throat.

Whoops, man, sorry about that. Hey, just part of the job-no hard feelings.

He's on a _roll_, baby- doesn't even need to take his EMR out of his jacket. Rude's shaking his head but he's not interfering as the last guy lowers his head in a linebacker rush he sidesteps like it's nothing, and yeah _baby _he's got this nice little adrenaline surge going now: the elbow strike this fuckwit practically runs right into snaps a rib before the loser can even figure out what the hell's happening and that maybe he shoulda' fuckin' thought twice before messing with Reno of the Turks, and now a follow-up blow folds him wheezing to his knees-

Wham bam thank you _ma'am_- beautifully-executed front kick right to the spine, toes curled back inside his shoes pretty as you please, knee up and everything; it's a whole body shot that's got all one-hundred-fifty pounds of him behind it, and he hears something break with a sharp gunshot report that echoes like the cellophane crinkle of his corresponding knuckle pop.

"Yo-I'm hungry." He taps a cigarette from his pack and lights up. Murder's a little like sex- sometimes you just need a good smoke to wind down afterward. "Let's get something to eat on the way home, yeah? And I told you this 'Chocobacco' shit don't cut it-tastes like ass, I'm tellin' ya."

* * *

><p>Her name is Tifa.<p>

She will tell the other customers, but not him.

Blondie never shows up again, but there's an acrobatic redhead on Tuesday, and a brunette from Thursday that can do things with her tongue he's never even seen before.

He wonders if she watches him leave with them.

He tries to get her to go home with him once. It is a Wednesday, and there is an echoic minute hand click of 1:59 trickling over into two a.m. on the wall beside his head. Down the bar, an age-broken hunchback of an old man is slumped over in his whiskey, snoring.

He remembers, because when she shakes her head there is suddenly a choked-off little hiccup in his lungs that reminds him of the first time he ever took a drag and is it getting hot in here? Something like a fist is squeezing his heart and it's probably just that fuckin' drink she slapped down on the bar in front of him five minutes ago, turning him inside out like she's got her arm in him up to the elbow, because seriously what the hell is this shit _made _of? Prowler piss?

His hand comes up to land fist thumps of pull-it-the-fuck-together-Reno-man reminders thundering off his chest, and he brings the other sweeping back through his bangs without letting the smile fall from his lips.

It's been knocked a little askew, though; he can feel it sorta' dangling there, like it's not sure if it wants to stay.

"Don't know what you're missin', babe."

She flicks her rag in an arc across the counter that just barely grazes the hand he lowers palm down across the bar. "Next one's on me, if you can remember my real name."

His next cigarette is in his mouth before he even remembers shaking it loose from his pocket. He stretches his lips around it in an eat-this smirk that pulls her mouth into a tight thin wire of a thing that he thinks might be her attempt not to return it. "Name's Tifa, babe. You can keep the drink and play me a round of pinball-if you lose, you gotta' walk me home." He does not mention it will be an hours long escort on foot.

There is a flash of terror in her eyes that spins her trembling back around toward hand-polished racks of booze that show him an arc of profile shot, moon-bleached pale. He is not supposed to see her fear, but he has killed enough people to pick it up like it's a tangible scent he can roll around in his nostrils, and it's radiating off her now like whatever's lurking in that one pile of laundry he has not bothered to pick up off his floor.

What'd he say?

"Um…it's not working, actually. Gotta' get someone in here to repair it." The smile she gives him is a piss-weak watered-down thing he's tired of getting. He's seen her flash a little something extra for Gramps down the bar there, and that asshole's missing most of his teeth. Got a why-bother comb over too, three straggling little soot-caked strands that deflect the lights off his head with about as much success as Reno's attempts to get this titastic little bar minx to sleep with him.

"You want me to take a look at it?" He lets his cigarette dangle sparking from his lips, and rolls up both sleeves.

"No! I mean, it's fine. I've got someone coming in tomorrow to fix it."

He links his hands behind his head and leans back on his stool, blowing rings that flatten out into steel-smog coils against the ceiling. "Sure thing, babe. You owe me that drink, then. Whiskey this time. On the rocks."

She sets it down in front of him with a conciliatory distraction of a smile that doesn't match her eyes.

Huh. He stubs his cigarette out in the ashtray beside his left elbow.

Why's he even noticing her eyes?

* * *

><p>New file folder on his desk today. Handwritten note at the top from Tseng: <em>Priority<em>.

Yeah yeah; he puts his feet up on his desk and shifts his cigarette from the fold of his bottom lip to between his teeth, and a quick rabbit nibble of a jaw clench cracks the paper like a bone and scatters soggy hand-rolled cancer across his mouth. Did that to a chick's nipples once; she seemed to like it. Trick's in not really biting down but just sorta' lightly vibrating the jaw just enough to let her know you're there. Fun for him, fun for you; come to Reno Land, baby, where everybody's a winner.

He smiles and flips the folder open across his lap.

Some punks calling themselves 'AVALANCHE,' capitalization not his. Douchebags. Another day, another couple a' fuckers he's gonna' make wish they were never born. Reno of the Turks is comin' to get you, baby; better start runnin' now.

"Yo, Cissnei. Lookin' hot, babe." He turns a long slow revolution in his chair that brings him back around to face her, still smiling. She rolls her eyes and keeps going, and he sets the folder down beside his PHS with a fireworks crackle of a spine stretch that slumps him moaning back down into his seat. A good back pop's almost as nice a release as sex, if you know what you're doing.

He flicks his cigarette down into the tray on his desk and beside it his fingers tap dance an erratic drum roll of a rhythm that is the only sound in the office, right now. The fuck's everyone else?

He thumbs another smoke from his pack and the striker on his lighter clicks a vacant echo of a snap that sounds a little like dry bone-whispers of old fractures in the dark- _get your fuckin ass out here_- and he slumps elbows-down against his desk, frowning. "Fuck, man."

An annoyed sweep of his hand knocks it clattering into the trash can at his feet.

He keeps the cig between his teeth anyway, rolling it around with practiced little flicks of his tongue.

Wonder what his little bar minx is doing right now.

* * *

><p>"Come on." He is practiced enough to not even muffle his words, speaking around his cigarette like this. "Dagan Lent doesn't have a chance at dead last, with that hag he's ridin'. Shoulda' retired years ago. You're gonna' see him stuck on the side of the track, probably underneath that ol' piece of gristle he calls a Chocobo."<p>

She is wiping down the bar as she talks, leaning just far enough forward to give him a whole new reason to try and get around this whole 'self respect' thing she has going on. He could get lost in those things for days- he's getting a haven't-been-fucked-in-weeks hard-on just looking at them. "Lent's pulled out plenty of surprises before throughout his career. I think he's still got a few things up his sleeve. He's smart enough to know when it's time to retire."

He likes arguing with her. She's…what's the word…spirited? Yeah. Sounds like she's got an actual head on her shoulders- most women are a neckline and a wet spot and _scritch scratch _here's another notch on his post, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, toots. But little miss barmaid Tifa with the stripper tits and the quick little mouth-

She's somethin' else.

He wonders what she tastes like. He shifts his cigarette to the side and takes another drink that spikes a hammer blow of a direct shot to his throat, and he blinks stars spinning from his eyes, but y'know- he's starting to get used to this shit.

Maybe even starting to develop a little taste for it.

"You trust that old fart's judgment enough to make a little wager?" He flicks ash glowing from the end of his cig, Mako bright.

"What kind of a wager?" She stops polishing the bar to sling her rag casually across one shoulder, and in front of that magnificent chest both arms fold into a barrier that obscures all sweet-motherfuckin-Gaia-_look-_at-them-babies glimpses he's been sneaking all night.

He smiles and upends his cig in the ashtray she slides across the counter toward him. It sizzles a cauterized-trachea hiss of a death and tips over to lie sputtering on the bar between them. She picks it up distastefully, thumb and forefinger pinch-grip and one of those looks on her face that might hurt his feelings, if he were the type to suffer hurt feelings. Or have them in the first place, even. "If Lent finishes lower than top three in the race on Saturday, you gotta' plant one right here, babe." He puckers his lips up and throws her a wink that's inspired more than a few take-me-right-fuckin-here-you-sexy-beast-of-a-man alleyway screws. (Lost his appetite for those real fast; it's not easy to draw your EMR while you're balls-deep in some slut and she's got her head thrown back in the sort of all-encompassing ecstasy that wipes out the whole dirty smoke-reeking slums around her and the Mako freak making a lunge for her throat. Those monsters have put a real cramp in his sex life a couple of times.)

Her expression does not shift. "Fine," she tells him mildly.

"Yeah? No cheating or anything? I'm not talking some little peck you'd give your sweet ol' granny on her prune-wrinkled lips, babe. Thirty seconds, minimum." He'll have her in ten. "Open-mouthed."

"Fine," she repeats, bringing both arms down to resume polishing the bar. He lets her catch him ogling her a few times, and winks again. "And if Lent finishes third or better, you can't come back here anymore."

The drink's burning in his throat again, or he's got acid reflex or heart burn or some shit like that or maybe he's just goin' Mako mutant batshit, because she can't have _really _said what he thinks he just heard-

She doesn't want him here? _No _woman doesn't want Reno- he's the best of the best, the wham, the bam, the whole motherfuckin' thank you ma'am, 'cause that's what they're gonna' wanna' be telling his dear sweet dead momma, when he's done with them.

The hell is this bitch's _problem_?

She is not looking at him.

He snaps his fingers and clears his throat and swipes a flicker of a yoo-hoo-look-at-me little wave that becomes a veiny white-knuckled fist on the countertop and she is _still _not fuckin' looking at him, what the hell _is _this shit anyway-

He keeps the smile on his lips like it's grafted there. "Come on, babe-you don't mean that. I'm the prettiest thing to walk into this bar since you stepped behind the counter."

She drapes her cloth back over her shoulder and walks down the bar away from him toward Gramps and his comb over and his palsied, outstretched hand. "We'll see on Saturday."

* * *

><p>Cissnei once asked him if his job ever bothered him.<p>

Stupid question. Orders is orders, yo. Besides, it's still better than the life ShinRa pulled him out of; shit's gotta' get a whole lot uglier before he ever wishes ShinRa never yanked him starving and wild-eyed and pox-puckered from the slums into a suit and a family and a little goddamned respect. At least now he gets to choose who he fucks. Used to be, you wanted to eat, you sucked a little dick here, let some gum-smacking wreck of an age-ruined whore stroke you there… but hey, you ate, you survived, you got back up and shrugged it off and you got to see another day that might just possibly be a little better than the last. And eventually there was a day better than the last, and one after that even better, see? He always knew there would be. He got away from his father, didn't he? Even trolling the streets with his hands out was better than that alcohol-soaked closet of a shack falling down around their ears.

If what you wanna' know is if he's ever paused for a second, hesitated a little before pulling the trigger, thumbing the switch, sliding the knife through subcutaneous muscle layers of yellow-butter fat globules-

Well, sure. He's not a monster, ya' know? But a job's a job, yo. No one loves their job every day. What it comes down to is end results, and he's got a roof over his head and food in his belly and enough disease-free pussy to keep him happy for the rest of his life, and what else has a man got to ask for, really? So he knocks a few skulls together to keep it that way. So he peels a few fingernails shivering from their beds to keep the suit and the desk and the chopper- people out there all over the world doin' that and worse for a lot less.

Pretty sweet gig, if you ask him. Nothing personal, no emotions gettin' in the way, fucking objectivity all up the way they tend to. No second-guessing- ShinRa points, he shrugs, someone dies. Easy peasy pass him another drink yo Reno's here time to get the party rollin' let's hear it for company-sponsored four star vacations.

Smooth as his favorite drink, or the blonde from Wednesday, sliding across him like silk.

* * *

><p>She sets her rag down with a huff and an eye roll and behind her the television set on the wall over her shoulder shrinks to a flyspeck of white static that wipes to galactic black. He's got both hands in his pockets and that smirk back on his lips now as he leans smiling across the counter-<p>

Pucker up, babe, here it comes-

He has to take his hands out of his pockets to bring them creaking down against the bar, and underneath his fingers there's a frail old bone snap of a warning groan and he's got his eyes shut too tight, because there are little firecracker pinwheels of white behind his eyes.

He'll have her in ten, he promised himself; Tifa Lockhart's going to be a panting doe-eyed puddle in his hands by the time he's done with her except this is not what's happening, he doesn't even _understand _what's happening-

Lips, teeth, tongue- he employs them all with a winded little gasp as he brings his hands shaking up to brush her shoulders and across his stomach her fingers slither leisurely toward his chest, throwing sparks like the ones behind his eyes-

He's getting pushed away.

_That's _never happened before. She flicks a finger toward the clock on the wall, and gathers up her rag again. "Time's up."

"Wha-?"

He's not _done_- he wants to press her up against those shining spit-polished booze bottles with her hands in his hair and one leg up around his waist, and he wants to fuck her until her tits bounce, until his name is a ceaseless crazed-animal shriek on her lips-

He wants to wake up next to her in the morning and stick around for coffee.

What?

He sits down with a hard-on and a headache and throws back a shot like he's a starving man in a buffet: grab, vaporize, slam down, next please.

He ruffles his hair with one hand and holds a cigarette smoldering in the other.

The hell is wrong with him?

* * *

><p>Rude wants to know where he keeps disappearing off to after work.<p>

Rude needs to mind his own fuckin' business.

Yeah, yeah, he's sorry all right, and no, he's not on his fuckin' period.

He is tired, he's worn out- he's gotta' start dating older chicks, because these young ones keep coming up with more and more inventive ways to tie him into little Reno-shaped pretzels-

Hey man, you asked.

The lies are starting to get easier, the longer he tells them. He used to think Ciss suspected something, but after a few probing glances and little thoughtful 'hmmms' that leave his heart pounding in his chest, she stops asking him what he's doing and who he's doing it with and why he's so oddly close-lipped about the whole thing, and he plants a sloppy spit-filled kiss on her mouth that she wipes scowling away.

Love ya' babe, come see me sometime when you realize some pretty boy lapdog of a SOLDIER's got nothin' on a man in a suit, especially _this _man in a suit-

When he's alone, he spends too much time thinking.

His hand is a tight color-bled clench of striker flick, on and off and off and on, and there's a cigarette going cold between his lips that he forgets to light.

He pictures Tifa Lockhart and he sees more than just T&A and a couple of sweaty mind-blowing hours between the sheets with those miles long legs around his waist and that sweet little ass dimpling under his fingertips as he fucks her screaming into her sixth orgasm of the night-

Huh.

* * *

><p>She won't let him fix the stupid pinball machine.<p>

They argue about it and he storms cursing out into the rain and it's pissing down out here and really what the fuck's crawled up his ass and died anyway; he's got tits and booze and a heater at his feet that belches warmth erratically crawling up his pants leg back there-

He turns around to stomp scowling back into her bar and behind the counter she gives a little head shake that brings a smile soundlessly ghosting across her lips, even though she's probably still pissed too.

She disappears through a swinging handprint-smudged door to her left. There is a towel in her hand when she emerges a moment later, and she slips it wordlessly across the bar toward him, leaning on the wood.

He's got some wood for her to lean on, he thinks with a smirk, smearing water from his hair.

They do not talk for several minutes. They are alone tonight and either she does not notice or she does not care, because she goes about her business like any other night, polishing glasses and elbow-greasing stains while he in turn tries to make her notice him: feet on the bar, cigarette in his mouth and oopsie, damn, look at that, little motherfucker slipped and isn't _that _going to leave a mark.

Huh. She isn't letting him bait her tonight.

"Why do you keep coming back here?" she asks right around the time he has decided he's had enough of all this silence, thank you very much.

He rolls his cig around in his mouth, tasting tobacco and question alike. _He _knows why he keeps coming back- or he's starting to think he does, anyway. He's just not sure he wants anyone else to know.

He tongues his cigarette back and forth, back and forth. Look, babe, no hands, now imagine you where this cig is-

There's a smile on his lips that doesn't match the thunder roll of tidal roar that's his blood in his ears, beating waves against his mind. Nice an' easy does it, Reno; little wink, little head cock, let your hands splay loosely palm out like it's no never fuckin' mind to you-

"Just the-"

The phone on the wall behind her interrupts him. She picks it up with the same smile she keeps giving him, fleeting and obligatory and oh-look-it's-you-again insulting, except now suddenly it fractures brackets of crow's feet around her eyes, now suddenly it's shining in her eyes and lighting up her face and stop the bus please who the fuck is this eliciting such a response in her, and can he get himself some of that, please?

"Cloud." She breathes the name like it's a fuckin' revelation, and suddenly the entire bar goes as red as the lank limp-drooping piece of hair in front of his eye. Who the motherfuckin' _hell _is this Cloud sonuvabitch and why is she saying his _name _like this-

Breathe, Reno baby. Thrill of the hunt and all that- want what ya' can't have, that's all. Simple.

He flicks ash from his cherry into the tray and decides this 'Cloud' is a limp-dicked queer who wouldn't know how to please a woman if she drew out a map with all her sweet spots circled in permanent-ink red.

She is laughing now, and he ratchets up his list. Pan-faced, twizzle-dicked, acne-scarred, disproportionately fat, like a big round beach ball…

He drums his fingertips impatiently against the bar. She is still laughing and smiling and turning her back to him now, twirling the phone cord coquettishly slithering around one finger.

…short, unforgivably stupid, virgin by choice and not misguided virtue…

"All right," she says softly. That twirling finger fans little wafts of hair scent coiling back toward him, and the hand around his chin slides up to crease his cheek. Vanilla. He wants to eat her with a spoon. "Call me soon, Cloud."

He hates that word. It's a stupid name anyway.

* * *

><p>He realizes three punches in that he's starting to make this personal.<p>

Not this guy's fault- nothing special about him anyway, strapped sobbing to this chair splashed in an artist's abstract of vomit stain ocher and oil painter's cadmium-

It's the way she says _his _name, Cloud, like a benediction, and the way she sighs his name, Reno, like she is only greeting him because she has to.

Rude lifts an eyebrow above the line of his sunglasses as he pulls panting away from this bastard crying in his piss-stained pants and shakes blood off his fist.

It spatters the wall in a long half-moon arc that's a Mako-lurid crescent that drips oozing between soot-grimed bricks.

He scrapes another chair across the floor with a nails-on-chalkboard squeal that cringes the man cowering back against his seat.

He straddles it with a contemptuous flick of his bangs from his eyes; they are knee to knee now, and a long slow slant of a lean forward puts them nose to nose as well, and there is a smile on his lips but not in his eyes. His fist rasps a switchblade _click _that springs moonlight-winking blade whispering from his palm. Contusion-swelling eyes pop owl-wide beneath blood-soaked bangs.

"So. AVALANCHE. Nothing?" He scratches the side of his head with his knife, carefully, and smiles. "Yo, Rude, you think this guy's full of shit? I think he's full of shit."

"I _told _you I don't _know _anything-"

He belts the guy's next word dribbling from his fist-mashed lips and spins man and chair alike clattering to the ground. Rude effortlessly, wordlessly rights both.

"Yo-you're not making this easier for yourself. If you give me and my partner something we can use, we'll let you go." That's a lie, but bullshit's part of the job too, and he can fib with the best of 'em- _sure baby course I love you you're real special to me don'tcha know-_

The man gives them nothing except shitstains and puke and the ragged sob-slurred wheezes that are his inhalations now.

He pretends the man's name is 'Cloud.'

The man lives a very long time.

* * *

><p>On Monday he does not go to Seventh Heaven. He picks up a girl on the way- tight sprayed-on dress and put-these-heels-up-over-my-head-Reno-baby yeah this is gonna' be good- and takes her back to his place.<p>

Their bodies slap rhythmic sex-soaked piston-pumps in the dark that spiral him moaning toward the edge and oh shit, oh _shit_-

Oh yeeeeaaaahhh, baby, right there, that's the spot, don't stop, Tifa-

Ah, fuck.

She leaves with a huff and a scowl and a scream, and he sits naked on the edge of his bed finishing what she started.

On Tuesday, he is back.

* * *

><p>He stumbled across his file once. Kind of a pathetic sparse little thing, really, lot like him in fact when they first brought him in.<p>

**Name: Reno, surname unknown.**

**DOB: Unknown. Approximate estimated age of fourteen**

**Medical History: Multiple fractures of the left clavicle, right fibula, third true rib**

**Past Illnesses: Unknown. **

**Mental Evaluation: Subject is emaciated and extremely dirty. Displays extraordinary irritability when questioned about his family. I have observed him around the office for approximately a week, and subject displays a marked derision toward anyone he perceives to be in charge. Unkempt, even after efforts are made to clean him up. Leaves his shirt untucked, hair unbrushed, forgoes his tie and anything else he views to be oppressive. He has no respect for any sort of rule and order; these attempts at counseling sessions are viciously mocked, when he is not too busy making lewd suggestions. **

Translation: daddy issues, an inherent distrust of authority and an unhealthy sexual fixation.

Pfft. Whatever, y'know. Grow up breathing booze and hooker cooze and lung-clogging reactor smoke and a guy's bound to pick up a few issues along the way, right? He likes to think of himself as fairly well-adjusted, considering.

Could be worse, after all.

He could be his father.

* * *

><p>He asks her about her childhood and her plans for the future and how she came to own this bar anyway, and the surprising thing is he actually cares about any of it.<p>

That's never happened before either.

She evades his questions like he slips morning-after talks and he stares panting after her like a bitch in heat because every time she leaves she takes his balls- _you're neutered, man_- and he is not sure how or when or why it happened and if he even wants them back.

Favorite ice cream movie color-

He fires these questions like bullets at her head, and they glance spiraling off the shoulder she juts out toward him instead of her face.

She polishes and sighs and flicks arcs of rag snap stinging off his cheek.

And sometimes, occasionally, blindingly, she smiles.

He's got those smiles all stored up in a secret insatiable little compartment into which he shoves memories of lips and teeth and rare lash-flickers of winks like he can't get enough of them, because he can't and he never will- she's got them all saved up for _Cloud_, pockmarked tit-sagging Cloud, and _man _he really fuckin' hates that guy-

She still wants to know why he keeps coming back.

The drinks. The company. The view; he tips a long lazy-eyed nod to her chest- hello there ladies how you doin' lookin' fantastic- and stubs his butt out with a smile.

He turns it into a game. Why are you here, Reno? That's the question of the hour.

He's got a different answer for her everyday.

The beer, the babes, the boobs- he can go on all night, toots.

In the neighborhood. Forgot to wash his hair today- can he borrow her shower?

Head injury; so sorry- this isn't his house? Ah, man, hate it when that happens.

Got chased all the way down here by Wutaian boogeymen and needed a place to hide. Whadaya' mean those things aren't real? One of the fuckers took a chunk out of his left ass cheek- go on an' see, you don't believe him.

She shakes her head and turns away but sometimes her shoulders are shaking, sometimes there's a twinkle in her eye that didn't used to be there as she rotates smiling back around to hand him his drink-

He tells her what flying a chopper means to him.

She still will not tell him anything about her, but early in the morning when the bar is closed and she has just finished polishing her last glass and wiping down her final table she lets him stay, she pulls a stool up beside him and listens with her chin in one hand and her brightly attentive eyes trained on him like what he is saying really _matters _to her, can you imagine that-

A month after he wins their bet, he tries to kiss her again.

She is re-arranging bottles in their racks when she turns around to find him standing right behind her with his hands pressed shaking against the wall to either side of her head and she is so close he can smell her shampoo, he can feel her tits brushing up against his rumpled untucked shirt-

He presses his mouth to hers like he is afraid one shuffling misstep of a wrong move will bring the moment crashing down around him like glass and for just a moment he takes her stillness for acquiescence- he gathers her shaking up against his chest and his lips trail fire down her chin to her neck-

Her hand shoots out to stumble him sputtering backward against the bar, and she hugs both arms across her chest.

She cannot look at him, just _look _at him for one fuckin' _second_, that's all he wants-

"Don't, Reno, please."

His smile is hollow but he holds onto it gamely enough; bullshitting's part of the job, remember?

She'll make him a fuckin' prodigy at it yet.

* * *

><p>Most days he is proud to be a Turk: got a suit and a tie (not that he wears the tie,) and babes and booze and the same corner booth at his favorite restaurant no matter who's sitting there first.<p>

But some days are one long shitstorm of coughing up blood on your knees, and it is those days he almost wishes he were a slum worker up to his elbows in grease-smeared reactor parts, hacking up soot-stained coughs that bend him wheezing at the waist.

He catches the next kick before it turns his temple into spongy blood-moist hamburger; a nimble wrench torques it warningly creaking away from his face, and ah _shit_-

Didn't see the other guy, the one with the bat or the club or whatever the hell it is that arcs whistling down in an overhand that batters all his mental faculties pirouetting away.

The sky is a blood-rose dawn over his head.

He kips groaning back onto his feet just in time to avoid a second downswing from bat boy that thuds sparking across his shoulder instead.

He gets his fingers into the guy's eye sockets with a raw meat squelch. Let 'er rip-

He wipes his hand on his pants- eyeball juice is the worse, man; can't get it outta' your clothes with a hundred gil and a smile- and ducks a wheel kick from another punk that shears his goggles throbbing from his forehead.

That's gonna' leave a _mark_, yo-

Eat this.

ShinRa instructors taught him how to punch properly. As a kid, most times he threw one it was a last resort that left his knuckles smarting like a mofo. Broke a few of 'em, couple a' times.

Now he's got all four fingers thumb-wrapped tight and that pinky clenched in like it's his saving grace, and he swings from the hips with all of him behind it- can't rely on that one scrawny lone little arm after all- and there is a matchstick crack of a break that skews the punk's jaw out of alignment, and the next one gets a sidekick to the sternum that staggers him gasping outta' the game for good.

His inhalations are blood-bubbling wheezes that make Reno feel just a little bit better.

He's still going to have to pay for a new pair of pants, though.

* * *

><p>He walks inside with two black eyes and a split lip and a limp that drags his right leg faltering behind him, and he smiles as she mothers him.<p>

Every time she leans in to dab the cut above his eyebrow, he can feel her tits graze up against him.

He tells her she should see the other guys.

* * *

><p>Cissnei observes that he is glowing.<p>

"Right back atcha, babe. Fair finally giving you what you need? If you're ever in need of a real man, come see me." He makes lewd pumping motions with his hips that send her laughing down the hall, one finger extended in farewell.

Rude is watching him too closely.

He turns his back on his partner's desk when he thinks about her now.

* * *

><p>He is already halfway through his customary strut when he walks inside: both hands in his pockets, cig in his mouth, goggles rakishly tip-tilted on his head-<p>

She is behind the bar crying.

The cigarette falls still-lit from his slack fish-hinged jaw, and only a brief back-of-the-mind flicker slides one foot over to stomp it out.

She turns away and wipes her eyes when she looks up to find him staring at her.

"Yo-"

He is uncharacteristically speechless. He spends an eyeblink of a second on his usual stool and then suddenly he is back on his feet, suddenly he is pacing in front of it because there is a fireball of a fist squeezing his heart all to shit, and he cannot sit down.

He jingles change in his pockets clinking off one another. "What happened?"

She picks up a glass and her rag and she keeps her back carefully between them, hunched at the shoulders.

She does not say anything.

"Yo, Tifa-"

"It's nothing." Her reply is a subtle little susurration of a response that barely stirs the hair dangling past her lips.

It's not nothing, someone _hurt _her and don't you worry Tifa babe, 'cause he's gonna' make them _pay_-

He slithers shadow-quiet up behind her, and inside his chest his heart thumps erratic thunder peals of faulty pulse point that start a migraine pounding in his head-_thud thud thud reno let me in let me in boy_-

He brings his cheek slanting down against her neck and his arms carefully up around her waist, and for just a moment she lets him hold her.

And then she sets down her glass and her cloth and she throws herself sobbing into his arms, and he is so surprised he rebounds off the counter with an expletive that does not even lift her face from his shirt.

She does not want to be alone tonight.

He strokes her hair and keeps his lips pressed up against her forehead, and he lets his eyes go half-lidded with this moment he wants to last forever, and sure thing, sweetheart, he can understand that-

No. She does not want to be _alone _tonight.

_Oh._

* * *

><p>He fucks her with her ankles in his hands.<p>

It is not gentle for either of them.

She claws his back and he bites her shoulder and it's all take and take and take, except this time he's not sure anymore that he is the one doing the taking-

He cums with a shoulder-muffled scream and across his eyes arc interstellar smears of black that glow fresh-forged white around the edges like shooting stars-

He is sweating and panting and he needs to know if it was good for her too because he has never felt like this before. He's got an arthritic quiver of a nervous tremor ghosting through his fingers that he has to appease with another cigarette, and he is staring down at her with it hanging unlit from the corner of his mouth, waiting for her to say something.

He flicks the cigarette between his lips from one side to the other, and holds both of her hands in his.

She rolls over without a sound and goes to sleep.

There is something alive in his chest, trying to eat its way out.

Nothing has ever hurt this badly before.

He traces her moon-shadowed profile with his fingers, and goes to sleep with his arm around her waist.

He never does smoke his cigarette.

* * *

><p>Something exponential shifts in their relationship. She lets him occasionally touch her now, and once in a while, she even asks him to take her home with him.<p>

Maybe he is just that good.

Nothing is official; she makes no demands, and he is too chicken shit to offer his own.

But he has not fucked anyone else in a month.

Must be love.

* * *

><p>Rude knows. Or, at least, he knows there's something going on, something his scrawny red-haired little companion's never even given a thought to before, because sometimes he catches himself whistling when he's not paying attention, sometimes he spaces dreamily wide-eyed out at his desk and comes back to himself doodling meaningless little scribbles across the vacant white gap of the files Tseng leaves on his desk, like a fourteen-year-old taking down notes in her diary.<p>

That guy sees too much. Wouldn't think so, with those shades- never figured out the story behind them, anyway, like why the hell doesn't he ever take them off and does he have some kinda' special cleaner for them, and can Reno wear them for just a second?

Probably comes from not talking so much. Silence is a virtue he's never really favored, personally. What's the fun in that anyway? Kinda' hard to get in a chick's pants without a _hey babe name's Reno let me buy you a drink_ here and there, although he could probably slide past on a wink and a smile, with most of them.

Rude will not stop staring at him. "See somethin' you like, dude?"

There is a brief spectral flicker of a smile across his lips that is gone before Reno can even call him on it. "It's nice to see you happy."

He twirls himself around in his chair, snorting. The cigarette in his hand trails half a second behind, describing loops of pyrotechnics orange in the air around him. "What, I'm not happy usually?"

Rude turns a page in the report he is reading. "You are content. It's not the same thing."

Tch. Nobody asked this guy, anyway. Psychoanalyze Reno the Turk, will ya'?

He is happy though. Sometimes.

When he can pretend he is not just another dick in the dark, keeping her company because the one she really wants is far away or gay or dead- he never did get the story behind those tears.

* * *

><p>They are alone in the bar again when a long smooth inhale summons his courage boiling up from his chest, and he cracks his knuckles, his neck, his back, and steps off the cliff.<p>

She still wants to know why he stops in every day- or as near to daily as he can make his visits, anyway, in between hunting down AVALANCHE operatives- but she asks the question with a smile now.

He has a different answer for her today, just like every other time, except this time it's the truth.

He hacks a cough that oils all the cracks in his voice, and on top of his thighs his hands fold into fists that puncture raw-meat half-moons across his palms.

There was this one time down in the slums that he took a knife to the gut, and some punk left him bleeding out on the sidewalk for the three measly gil in his pocket and a loaf of bread. Hurt a lot, got his hands all messy- he can still remember lying there in this crumpled little pile with people stepping right over him and children pointing and old women tongue clucking and his nose running while he cried, but the very worst part of it all was this: he was born a slum punk and he was going to die a slum punk and there was never going to be anything else for him, Reno the pickpocket, Reno the sometimes whore-

Reno with the father who liked little boys, and the mother who pretended not to notice.

He was almost as terrified that day as he is now.

She crosses her arms and cocks her head playfully to one side. "Well? No Wutaian boogiemen today?"

"I think I'm in love with you." He blurts the confession like it's a bad meal he needs to vomit, but the poison is still inside of him somehow, because he is sick and shaking and the grab he makes for the counter in front of him slides awkwardly off into his lap.

His nails draw more raw-meat crescents across his palms.

The clock on the wall is ticking very loudly.

Come on, babe, _say _something here, he's _dying_-

Eternal silence descends like a hammer blow between them.

* * *

><p>Veld takes one look at him the next morning and sends him back out the door.<p>

He is hungover as hell and vomiting into the trashcan at his feet and fuck it his eyes don't even work, maybe he is going blind, but hey, he's here, yo- point him toward the next AVALANCHE jerk, cuz he needs somethin' to kill-

He is useless by the chief's assessment. Home he goes.

Rude walks him to the door without a word, which is all fuckin' good to him, because he doesn't want to talk anyway.

He does not go home. He picks the first bar that is not Seventh Heaven and gets very, very drunk.

* * *

><p>He is a virtuoso, a woman's body a finely-tuned instrument, and he plays hers like he was born to it.<p>

He's had some real screamers in the past, but she is not like that; a jerk of her hips, a long sharp hiss of an inhalation and a rigid fist straining against the hair at the nape of his neck, and she's done.

He kisses the inside of her thigh and runs his nose along the line of sweat there.

She smells like sweat and musk and vanilla and he wants to roll the scent around in his mouth and taste it, he wants to leave it there like a good cig tucked up under the fold of his lip because there is only so long this can all go on before she remembers that this Cloud asshole is the one she really wants.

He pillows his cheek on her tits and around him the room drips shadow and coughs a radiator wheeze of line-ticking heat that smears warmth slithering up his ass. She shifts underneath him, and he lets one arm flop possessively coiling around her waist and arcs his hips forward with a sigh as she reaches back to stroke him.

She has experience, but not much. He's been around the block enough to tell.

He does not remember this when she is riding him.

It's just that she's got those _tits_, and this tight little ass that is perfectly round and firm and smooth beneath his fingers, and oh fuck she is so goddamned _tight_-

The world spins out of focus around him and his breath is a beached-guppy pant in his ears and inside his chest his heart flickers hummingbird thuds of adrenaline crest that bring him gasping to the brink.

He spills over it with his eyes rolling and his toes curling and his teeth in her shoulder.

Sometimes if he is lucky, instead of rolling soundlessly over to curl up fast asleep on the opposite side of the bed, she stays awake and smiles at him.

He brushes hair from her eyes and leans into the hand she swings slowly up to cup his cheek, and his heart takes a running start of a leap into his throat because he is too stupid to stop hoping.

She wants to know if he ever takes off his goggles.

He slips them off and puts them on her, and now it is him making her laugh and not that twerp on the phone, and he tickles her into breathless pleas for mercy until all this rolling around's got him hot and bothered again.

When they are done, she sleeps on the other side of the bed after all.

Yo, he was just kidding about that whole love thing.

* * *

><p>He's decided to try this whole flower thing most chicks seem to be into. Picked up a nice little bouquet off some girl selling them from a wagon just down the road, although even a smile and an arm graze weren't enough to haggle the doe-eyed little thing down on price.<p>

She takes them with a smile and puts them in a vase on the bar where everyone can see them.

It's like a little sign around her neck- _yo, Reno was here, hands off_- and it makes him beam like he is not supposed to, all teeth and no wink, but it doesn't matter anymore, because he does not need to seduce her. They are past that, now. He's never been past that with a chick before.

He taps a cigarette from his pack and clicks his lighter and leans one elbow down beside that vase, huffing cinereal spirals from his nose.

"Yo- bartender's choice, babe."

The smile she gives him is not the one she keeps stored up for that asshole Cloud, but it's the closest he's ever seen.

He leans forward across the bar to kiss it and forgets the cigarette in his hand.

She has to frantically splash water from the sink across her flowers.

* * *

><p>He goes about his job merrily- he's a wide-grinning kid in a candy store, gimme one of those and those and those- because finally he has something to come home to. (So it's a bar in the slums and she is still not in love with him, <em>whatever<em>, yo, he's _Reno_, baby, and he'll get her eventually.)

Boom, pow, yeah take that, _whoo_, eat Turk fist, _bitch_, that's right and don't come back-

Rude is in love too.

He doesn't say anything of course, but one casually slouch-shouldered reconnaissance stroll puts him in a bar with a babe and his pal, staring across lamp-lit hand-polished oak at one another.

Big guy's never looked like this before, all hard-sharpened angles melting into a smile.

It's nice, yo? He's happy for the guy. There's a smile softening his own face- he can feel it pulling at his cheeks, and ain't this just fuckin' adorable, paid killers with hearts and the women who love them. (He'll make that the truth one day, Tifa babe.)

He is about to leave when Rude gets up from the table and excuses himself, and a hawk-eyed flick of a glance shows the woman scrambling for his PHS.

He has to be the one to break the news to his partner.

There is a long heart-thundering stretch of silence- _say somethin' man, just give the word and I'll gut the little bitch for you_- and he stands with both hands in his pockets waiting until his friend is ready to talk.

"Her name is Chelsea," Rude says slowly, rubbing both eyes behind his glasses.

"Her name _was _Chelsea, man; bitch is dead to you now."

Fuck those AVALANCHE whores anyway.

* * *

><p>The jukebox machine in the corner eats his gil with a <em>clank <em>and a whir that spins him grinning back around toward her with matching clicks of rhythmic finger snap. He rolls his hips with a smile and a nod, and she waves both hands laughingly before her face in protest.

"Yo- come on."

"No, I don't think so- Reno, don't!"

He takes a running start for the bar and lands gracefully bent-kneed 'cause that's how he rolls, and he takes a shuffling slide of a sidestep that skates him skidding over new-gleaming wood to a stop in front of her.

He's got a hand out and a smile on his lips and she hides her face in her palms as he makes metrical thrusts with his hips that bring heat like a rash flooding up from her neck out into her cheeks. "Come on."

She flaps a hand at him without looking up. "Get off my bar."

"Come _on_." He catches her hand on its next pass and yanks her up beside him, and there is a startled scream on her lips as he twirls her laughing beneath his arm, and when he brings his hand slanting down to the small of her back they are both breathless and half-lidded and pressed flush against one another.

He persuades her to close up early.

She writhes underneath him on the bar as he takes his time licking and kissing and sucking his way down her body, and he asks her shakily if she'll just tell him one little thing before he slides himself inside.

Yes, of course.

Does she like him at all? Maybe not like Cloud, but at least please-

He loses the question in a ragged outburst of expletives as her hips pick up a rhythm that buries him all the way to the hilt, again and again and again, and she is too winded to answer anyway.

Afterward she slides his shirt back on over his arms and she kisses his chest before doing up the buttons and leans her head against his sternum with a sigh that stirs the material rippling across his torso.

She likes him more than she should.

She can't love him, though.

He keeps one arm around her as he smokes.

* * *

><p>"Tifa, you need to be careful. He's a <em>Turk<em>."

"Reno won't hurt me."

"He's ShinRa. He'll hurt you if he finds out who you are. He'll _kill _you, Tifa, don't you get that? Why even take the risk?"

"It might help us, if he lets something slip about his job-"

"Is that really why you're doing this? You're not cold enough to sleep with some guy just to pump him for information. You're putting AVALANCHE at risk hanging around someone like that, Tifa, _think_."

"I am thinking of AVALANCHE, I promise. I would never put it at risk, you _know _that."

He sags back against the door with his fist in his mouth, because it is the only way to keep from screaming.

Someone has yanked the whole fucking world out from underneath him, and he wants to charge shrieking into the room with his EMR swinging and his fists smashing racks of booze shattering to the floor because how could she _do _this to him, lying AVALANCHE skank _whore_-

He _loved _her- he _loves _her- _didn't he fucking tell her that_, he has _never _told a woman that before-

Doesn't she _fucking _get it-

He elbows the door out of his way and reels out into greasy soot-colored morning and he keeps going because he can't stop now, if he stops he will turn around, he will _kill _the lying bitch with his bare _fuckin' _hands-

* * *

><p>He picks three fights on his way back to HQ, and stumbles into the office bleeding from his lips and his nose.<p>

He demands an audience with Veld.

Nothing personal, babe. Just doin' his job.

Just like her, huh, that lying rat AVALANCHE _slut_.

He collapses into the chair at his desk and pulls his PHS numbly from his jacket, and for a very long time he stares down at that blue-winking faceplate and all he can see is her smile and her eyes and her soft little hands bunching up fistfuls of shirt front.

ShinRa made the last AVALANCHE operative he brought in scream for a very long time. He took a couple a' whacks at them himself, a slice here, a dice there, stick a fork in this fucker and pack him off to Hojo, he's done.

He makes the call two hours before they pull the raid.

"Yo, it's Reno." He has to cough the tremor from his voice. "Better get yourself outta' there, AVALANCHE bitch."

There is a white static crackle of deep breathing and then her voice, quietly shaking. "Reno, I'm sorry. I didn't want to-"

He thumbs the 'off' button with a palsied old man jerk of his thumb, breathing like he has just set a new mile record.

His PHS shatters against the wall.

* * *

><p>While the rest of them set about coldly, methodically dismantling her bar, he overhands his EMR into the pinball machine like it is Cloud's head.<p>

He swings and swings and _swings _and shrapnel shards of glass and wood and metal splinter and fracture and fly scraping past his cheeks and it will never be _enough_-

He hates it he _hates _it he _hates it_ and he hates _her _he does not understand how she could _do _this to him is he not fucking _good _enough for her? Is that it? Is it because he's not fucking _Cloud_?

Well take this you bitch, you _fucking _bitch, here goes your bar you scrimped and scrounged and begged for and here goes your _fucking _little terrorist loft and he hopes there's someone down there, he hopes it's a _friend_, he hopes it's _Cloud_-

He's going to drag the fucker screaming out by the balls, and then you'll see what happens to bitches who cross Reno the Turk, then you'll fuckin' _get it_, you worthless lying sneak of a whore, he hopes you _die_-

His EMR clatters from a hand that is shaking too badly to grip it anymore, and he falls back against a table with a thud that jolts the asthmatic wheeze in his throat into something that is about to become high and keening and utterly fucking unmanning, and he cannot _take _it anymore-

It is raining outside. He has to lean his hand against the rain-greased wall because his knees are cloth now and they fold like cheap matchsticks of card table legs underneath him, and he sits down hard in the mud.

He gets snot all over his hands as he sobs.

Rude steps outside to stand patiently vigilant beside him with his hands folded in front of his immaculately-pressed pants, and when his cries are just tattered hiccups that hunch his shoulders up around his ears, his partner hands off the cigarette pack he does not even remember dropping.

It takes him three tries to work one free, and when he is done the thing is a fist-crumpled mess he throws angrily down in the shit-slick sludge beside his shoes.

He tongues his cig back and forth, tick tock- _the mouse ran up the clock bitch I told you to clean this fucking sty-_

Rude's hand is a warm reassuring squeeze across his shoulder, and then he is gone.

He is not sure how much time passes, but he thinks it might be hours.

Somewhere out beyond him in the slums, someone is begging for mercy.


End file.
